There was a Crooked Man

by George Worthing Yates

  “A proper question, I dare say. Perhaps he went down the lift, and into the street, and away.”

  “He couldn’t. The painters are using the elevators.

  I asked them, and they didn’t see him or anybody else go down or up.”

  “Perhaps he went down some other way?”

  “I don’t think so. He didn’t go down the stairs on this side, because they’re painting, as I told you, and the painters would have seen him. He didn’t use the elevator on this side of the building, because it isn’t running, because the painters are using it. He didn’t go down the elevators on the other side, because the elevator boy didn’t take him down. He didn’t go out the Eighteenth Street stage door, because a man was at the door all the time, and nobody gets in or out without being checked. He didn’t go down the fire escape, because that would ring a bell, and the bell didn’t ring. And I know Lutz. He’s just a good, honest, simple, decent watchman. What could he do, disguise himself? He wouldn’t know how to put on a disguise in a million years. And he couldn’t get out the theatre entrance without being spotted in his uniform, and besides, why should he want to get out? Anyhow, he must be around here somewhere. Only he isn’t.”

  “I’m sure you must find it very perplexing,” said Bennett. “However, you may take comfort. A missing watchman may turn suspicion from Christien.”

  “But you can’t tell me the watchman did it.”

  “I shan’t, I assure you.”

  “And Tussard may get the idea Christien paid the watchman to run away. He didn’t. I know he didn’t, and I know Lutz didn’t run away. I know these people, and it’s absolutely crazy to think of them being mixed up in a murder. Just the same...”

  “Ah. True. Policemen are appallingly cynical. Nevertheless, Holcomb, this watchman promises rare hunting for an hour or two, and I’m sure we ought not envy Tussard his pleasant distraction. Do him good. And please don’t go away. Stay with me. You see, I find I want to talk with you. You might turn up the collar of your coat against the weather, and smoke a cigarette by all means, do, and tell me the answers to a few questions.”

  Holcomb obeyed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THESE TERRACES, four stories above the street, one running along each corner of the bulk of the Chelsac Theatre, are like narrow shoulders on a crouching beast, or less fancifully, like decks on a high square ship. The walls drop from them clean and perpendicular to the pavement below, to Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets. And it was on the south terrace, above Eighteenth, that Geoffrey Bennett stood moodily nursing his pipe, glancing up into the falling mist, and placing himself in the geography of New York.

  “Ah. What’s that, Holcomb?”

  “Greenwich Village.”

  “Monstrous.”

  Since the heavy rain had stopped, it was possible to see vaguely up and down the terrace. The low clouds reflected a murky light.

  “And this poor devil, the dead man. Where was he found?”

  “Right about here, where we’re standing.”

  “Oh.”

  “The police think he was killed here, and left just where he dropped. I guess they can tell by the domes and all that.”

  Bennett nodded agreement. He rapped out the dottle of his pipe against the heel of his hand. He looked about the terrace, a clear space of stone tiles broken only by the mouth of the fire escape, and bounded simply and cleanly by the high parapet above the street, and the high walls of the fourth story. He turned then so that he faced the lighted windows of the three offices, one animated by the collection of witnesses, one quiet with a bored policeman standing watch over an unresponsive corpse, and a third empty.

  “For Christien’s sake, I should like very much to discover the truth. Making it my affair to do so. You understand, I hope, that you can help, if you will?”

  “That goes without saying.”

  “Right. Pledge of discretion for both of us, eh? Right. I think we may safely get on with it, Holcomb. The gathering in that office—Christien’s private office, I believe—why are they there?”

  Bennett led Holcomb closer to the window, until they were able to look through into the room.

  “Tussard’s keeping them,” said Holcomb, “because he isn’t through with them, I suppose. They were around when it happened. He’s been questioning them.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Look over there. Stout man sitting in the arm chair. That’s John Boxworth. House Director. He’s my boss. He was up here for the Executive Committee meeting.” John Boxworth promptly smiled for Bennett, and lifted his face, though Bennett was far enough away in the darkness to be invisible. Nevertheless, the effect was that of a man cheerfully obliging the photographer. He held the pose. As a matter of fact, he happened to be listening to the conversation that was raging about him.

  John Boxworth looked like Saint Nicholas with improved thyroid functioning. He was short, round, bulbous, yet dapper. He had a small cheerful mouth, fat pink cheeks, bright blue eyes. He had hair that was not quite white, more iron gray, but that served the purpose very well. He looked the personification of generous, amiable good-nature, kindly pleasantness, and he may have been just so because of the necessity of living up to his appearance.

  His clothes were fastidiously cut. His manner, as he sat there, seemed both vivacious and attentive. He looked to be over fifty, yet under sixty, and as energetic, sharp and alert as any younger man. A large, tall woman sat on the arm of his chair, and smoked in violent belches like a locomotive, and talked to him.

  “Who is she?”

  “That’s Emma Whittacker.”

  “The woman who sent out those advertisements? Editor of the American Lady, or what’s it called—?”

  “That’s right. Damned if I know what brought her here tonight. Just the same, she was here when it happened.”

  A tall, cheerful, elderly Amazon of a woman, this Emma Whittacker. She wore a mussy apple-green evening gown, a wilted gauze scarf round her strong neck, and over the whole an inappropriate tweed coat marked like a horse-blanket. She was earnestly talking Box-worth’s ear off, with gestures. Bennett, who had daughters very much like her, and granddaughters, and great-granddaughters, too, in all likelihood, recognized her nature at once. She was a country woman.

  Beyond Boxworth and Emma Whittacker, three younger people lounged against the wall and talked gravely, almost sadly.

  “The girl with the two men. Dashed pretty. Who is she?”

  “That’s Emma Whittacker’s niece. Ann Crofts, her name is. She’s in business with her aunt. I don’t know why she’s here, either.”

  Ann Crofts was all that Bennett said—pretty, and capable besides. Her eyes, the movement of her head in the course of conversation, were as authoritative as the men’s. They seemed to listen to her with respect.

  The fact that she wore no evening dress, but a smart tailored suit of dark stuff instead, and a burberry over it, made her seem very businesslike. But more than she was capable, Bennett admitted, she was pretty.

  On her left stood a tall and extremely slender young Jew, darkly handsome, quietly pessimistic, and probably intellectual. Sharp as a razor, Bennett commented to himself. A man whose wits would be accustomed to the most involute subtlety.

  “And he?”

  “That’s Lowes Levison, Assistant to Mr. Christien.”

  “He attends meetings of this Executive Committee, I presume?”

  “All the men in there do, except Suttro. Boxworth and Levison are on the Committee, and Christien’s head of it, and there’s Mander, the Stage Director, who couldn’t get here because he broke his arm in an accident yesterday afternoon. Suttro must have come up to the meeting on business, because I know he got here before eleven.”

  “And is that chap Suttro?”

  “That’s Anthony Suttro. The writer. I guess you must have heard of him.”

  Suttro, then, was the third of the three leaning against the far wall, conferring with Levison and Ann Crofts. Suttro had
a perceptible air of importance and distinction about him, though his attitude was modest enough and unassuming. A kind of smooth assurance, easily identified but not very easily described, creeps over men who reach eminent success. Suttro had this; and a vocal halo of glory round his name when Holcomb pronounced it. The name, indeed, was vaguely familiar to Bennett, and he put to one side in his mind the intention of finding out why at a more convenient time. Something, he was sure, to do with political essays.

  Suttro, more than any other feature, had a strikingly handsome head, heroic, classical, and much more appropriate for a marble Apollo than for a man. Yet his face, animated and expressive, contrived to keep his head from appearing stupidly good-looking, and the complete impression was exactly what Suttro must have desired; that of a beautiful, mobile and powerful brain, tucked into a suitable package.

  As Bennett watched, he saw Ann Crofts turn from Levison and Suttro towards her aunt, and beckon her. Something she said also urged the stout Boxworth out of his chair, and brought all five of them together in an attentive huddle. However interesting their subject might be, Bennett had no means of overhearing it. Holcomb threw away his cigarette, and fidgeted unhappily in the strong drizzle that had succeeded the rain.

  “I say, did you happen to be here when Christien made his discovery?”

  Holcomb said, “I was just coming in. I was late, held up downstairs, and Mr. Boxworth was waiting for me to bring him the day’s box-office figures. I got here right at the minute Mr. Christien came back in the window.”

  “And these people in the room were here?”

  “Boxworth, Suttro and Levison were in the offices. Ann Crofts was sitting outside in the hall, waiting for Suttro, or something like that. Emma Whittacker was somewhere in the building, we don’t know just where.”

  “These five were convenient to the crime, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could anybody else get to this part of the building?”

  “I went over every bit of that with Tussard, and I’m damned if I see how anybody could. You notice we traced the cripple, the guy who was killed. We traced the watchman, too. If anybody else came up here, I’m willing to swear we’d have known about it.”

  “Then one of these five people must have killed the chap, if Christien didn’t?”

  “In a way, I suppose that’s right.”

  “May I add you to them, to make six?”

  “I’ve got an alibi, but I don’t know how good it is. I suppose I could have squeezed in time to choke the guy on my way from my office down in the theatre, to Christien’s office here. That’s the way these things are always done, isn’t it?”

  “Six, then.”

  “Add the watchman. He makes seven.”

  “Very well, seven.”

  “And there’s Hobey Raymonds. He was somewhere around up here, high as a kite.”

  “Who is Raymonds?”

  “A young gent who used to work here. He’s crazy about Ann Crofts. He’s drunk half the time. They dragged him off to a cell tonight because he was too drunk to talk straight.”

  “With Raymonds, there’s eight. Drunk or dry, I shall include him. Eight, then, from whom to choose a guilty person. Is that reasonable? I think so. Of the eight who may have been in a position to commit murder) we shall have to drop Suttro, Boxworth and Levison, I presume—”

  “They’re too big to do anything like this,” said Holcomb.

  “Perhaps. I shall drop them, however, because they were together waiting for the meeting to begin.”

  “Together?”

  “You imply they were.”

  “They weren’t, damned if they were. That’s what makes it bad for Mr. Christien.”

  “Why?”

  “They got together about eleven, they didn’t have tome papers, I was supposed to bring them up, they had to wait for me. Well, they didn’t stay together. Suttro tat in Christien’s office, alone. Boxworth was in the secretary’s office looking through some papers at the desk in there. Levison was in his office with Christien.”

  “And?”

  “Levison said he was so tired he had to snatch fifteen minutes’ sleep if he could. He’s always sleeping that way, and working all night. He fell asleep. And he doesn’t know what Christien did. After talking it over with Mr. Boxworth, I think it’s pretty probable Mr. Christien opened his window for some air, He has a bad heart, and he gets short of breath. When he opened the window, maybe he saw something out there in the rain, and -he slipped out the window to take a good look at it. And found the dead man. But if it ever comes to saying Christien didn’t do it, then there’s no reason why Suttro and my boss Boxworth can’t be suspected. And for that matter, if Christien dies, nobody’ll be able to prove Levison didn’t do it, because Christien’s the only man who can prove Levison did sit in a chair and hill asleep, as he says. I don’t think Christien, Suttro, Boxworth or Levison had anything to do with it, any more than I’d think President Roosevelt or the King of England or the Premier of France would get tangled up in a thing like that. People like that just don’t, that’s all, and you couldn’t ever convince me they did. But if Christien and the watchman come out innocent, those others at the meeting will be next on Tussard’s list, because everything that goes for Christien, except the suicide baloney, goes for them, too.”

  “Ann Crofts?”

  “She was sitting in the hall. She didn’t see anybody come past her. She couldn’t go through Christien’s or Levison’s office or past Boxworth in the secretary’s office without being seen. And she’d have had to go down the hall to the infirmary to get out on the terrace any other way. And I just don’t think she did.”

  “This Emma Whittacker?”

  “They haven’t got anything against her except that Tussard doesn’t know where she was when it happened. You could say she came across from the north side of the building and made her niece promise not to tell when she went past to go out on the terrace—but that’s not so hot.”

  “And Raymonds?”

  “He wouldn’t choke a man. He’d beat him up. Of course, I suppose Ann Crofts likes him enough to keep her mouth shut if she saw him going in or out, if that makes any difference.”

  “And you?”

  “Ann Crofts didn’t see me. And she’s not in love with me, anyhow.”

  “The watchman, then?”

  “I’ve known Lutz ever since he worked here. I don’t think so.”

  Bennett seemed to groan quietly. He fished out his pipe again.

  2.

  “Mr. Christien came out upon this terrace at fifteen minutes past eleven, and discovered a murdered man’s body. That much is definite, I assume. Now, what happened when Christien came back into his office? You were here then, I believe.”

  “I was up here by then,” said Holcomb. “There was a lot of excitement. There would be. I don’t remember what Christien said, something about a dead man on the roof. He was all in, all out of breath and white as a sheet. He went to pieces on us, and Suttro called for the nurse downstairs to come up. I think it was Mr. Boxworth who called up the police.”

  “It was raining then?”

  “Hard.”

  “Christien’s coat must have been wet.”

  “It was.”

  “And yours, and the others’?”

  “We all got wet, because we all went out right away to see the dead man.”

  “You didn’t observe anybody, Miss Crofts or Boxworth or Levison or Suttro, who seemed wet before going out?”

  “There was too much excitement to notice. Maybe Miss Crofts had some rain on her coat, but she’d just come in a few minutes before, and a rain-coat doesn’t soak up water like other coats.”

  “Quite.”

  “Raymonds was pretty wet. In fact, he was soaked. I think he’d been walking around town for half an hour before he came in here.”

  “How uncomfortable,” said Bennett. “Was there some reason for holding this meeting of the Committee tonight?”


  “I suppose there was.”

  “What, pray?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose Christien knew, he sent out word about it. Maybe Levison knows. Maybe Miss Bannerman—she’s the secretary—knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with Suttro, because he came to it, and he doesn’t belong to it. But when I had a word with Mr. Boxworth a little while ago, he said he thought it was something very important, but not connected with Suttro at all. Some kind of trouble that had just come up in the last day or two. It isn’t much help, is it? In my job, I’m not supposed to know everything.”

  “What is Suttro in the theatre?”

  “Nothing. He’s an outsider.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s head of Suttro and Faunce, the public relations people, and they’re the representatives of the Chelsea Project. In fact, Suttro’s one of the trustees of the Project. He started the whole idea. It’ll be his job now to keep the papers from being too rough with us.”

  “Indeed. Will he do that for Christien, too?”

  “That’s an idea. Somebody ought to see him about that.”

  “Exactly,” said Bennett, and fell silent, thinking.

  3-

  Outside the windows of the infirmary, a sudden blinking of little lights appeared. Dark bodies moved, the lights swept out in faint beams over the surface of the terrace. Through the dazzling mist came an effect of great industry.

  “They haven’t found the watchman,” said Holcomb.